


Among the Stacks

by Moorishflower



Series: Nerdstuck! [2]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Awkwardness, Crush at First Sight, F/M, Flush Crush, Nerdstuck!, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:18:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Sollux gets Feferi alone doesn't really go all that well.</p>
<p>(Set in the Nerdstuck! universe.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among the Stacks

**> Author: Pan camera.**

Your name is Sollux Captor. You’re twenty, in the parlance of humans, and you do not go to college.

This came as a huge surprise to basically everyone you know. _But you’re so smart!_ Terezi had said. _What will you do instead?_ Karkat had asked. _Fuck around with god-awful code all day?_

Funnily enough, that is precisely what you do. You’re the best fucking code-wrangler in this entire city. And if anyone asks why you chose to move to a primarily college-student infested section of San Francisco, well, you can tell them that there are a goodly number of new, panicky IT grads with rich parents and no time for actual work who will pay a pretty penny for some program or other to be compiled by such and such a date, no questions asked, and even more professors looking to expand their networking, needing everything from basic CSS lessons to a full revamp of their websites.

You certainly didn’t move so you could be closer to your friends, no sir.

All that said, however, you do spend a disproportionate amount of your free time on the UTAU campus. Sometimes it’s hanging with Karkat and Terezi, and, by extension, their own ever-widening circle of friends, but sometimes, if they’re busy (as they are now, with classes, homework, or, in this case, teaching TZ how to do tabletop RP rather than FLARP), you’ll just...wander the grounds. Get a coffee from Bruno’s, partake of the cheaper buffet-style cafeterias (your semi-weekly dose of fruits and greens), hang out with the student clubs. The Gaming Society is holding one of their Late Night LAN competitions, Halo and Call of Duty and some oldies but goodies like SSBM. They’ve got a single-player corner that you watch for a bit, some ladies playing Dragon Age, Katamari, and Left for Dead, but eventually you’re asked if you’d like to join, and you beg off, citing work (you could definitely be working right now, but you don’t want to).

Instead, you head to the library, dusty stacks and the ever-present sound of bleary-eyed students nursing extra-strong espressos and flipping pages in a pre-midterms haze. The UTAU library is like a maze, dark but for the bright tech corners, where a few students tap sluggishly at their keyboards in a vain attempt to find the book that will let them pass with at least a C average. You drift among the low tables and the biographies, heading instinctively for the manga and anime section. You’ve finished King of Thorn and you’re all caught up on Kuragehime, so you’re in the market for something new to pass the time.

You hear her before you see her, a hushed, “That is so glubbin’ _hot_ ,” and then a nervous giggle. You push your glasses up to hide the glow of your eyes and peek around the edge of the stack, limbs tucked close to your body, stealth mode activated.

You would know her even if you had never seen her before, with her cascading pitch-black hair and her bright, bright fuchsia eyes. The goggles and the little gold tiara seal the deal. Feferi Peixes sits cross-legged in the middle of the narrow aisle, a slim volume open in her lap, a fashionably chic backpack dumped carelessly next to her. Her cheeks are colored a light grey-pink, and every so often she lifts a hand to cover her mouth. You feel like you’re...intruding, so you back off, putting a hand over your chest to feel your racing bloodpusher.

Feferi. God, she’s so _beautiful_. You met her at the beginning of the semester, when you were introduced to all of Karkat’s extended circle of friends. She’s pretty much a package deal with Eridan Ampora, the most hateable guy on the planet, which you suppose makes sense (you’ve always loved duality) considering that Feferi is the most pitiable. God, just look at her, all hunched over in the aisle and giggling over her book, you don’t even know what she’s reading but you’re sure it’s just as precious as she is...

You clear your throat, and hear her say “ _Motherglubber_ ,” and then hurried shuffling. You edge around the shelf to find her holding the book she’d been reading in a defensive ‘how did this get here’ sort of way. The title is Selfish Mister Mermaid; you guess she likes BL manga? That’s cool. It takes all types. And if the future head of troll government wants to watch human dudes have sloppy makeouts, no one is going to tell her ‘no.’

Maybe if you, like, hate-macked on her BFF Eridan...no, God, wait, what the hell are you thinking?

“Oh!” She looks relieved, and also is no longer attempting to act like someone snuck up on her and placed semi-smutty literature in her hands without her consent. “You’re...Sollux, right? Captor?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” God _damn_ your lisp. Weirdo fangs and a fucked-up tongue don’t help you seem any less dorky than you already are naturally. You basically lost the genetic lotto, thanks for playing, don’t bother with any more tickets, bye.

You officially suck. Still, some long-dormant shred of machismo makes you lean casually against the bookshelves, eyebrows raised over the rims of your glasses. “And you’re Feferi.” You try to put a little questioning inflection in it. Like you’ve somehow forgotten her. Like you _could_. That’s a laugh.

She smiles at you, hesitant, and your bloodpusher goes _tha-dump_ in your thorax. You probably have hearts in your eyes. Better not take off the shades. “Good to see you again.”

“Likewise!” She fucking _beams_ at you. She just...looks so happy all the time.

You pity her. You pity her _so hard_.

“I thought you went to another school?” Karkat had been weirdly cagey about that. Either it’s a secret, or he really doesn’t know; either option is likely, considering Feferi’s importance. There are still some crazies out there, militant and aging midbloods brainwashed by the former Condesce, who wouldn’t hesitate to stage an assassination attempt if the wind is right. Not to mention the current--and alarming--trend of human-on-troll violence...

Feferi holds the book against her chest, hugging it. “Oh, I do! I just came by for a visit!”

Oh, right. She’s got a private jet. And she’s probably got a birth fund the size of a small country. Why is she even still talking to you? You’re a loser. A nobody. You’re a weirdo who crunches numbers for a living, whose idea of fun is sitting in a dark room and grinding your night elf so you can do the next level break quest, _you un-ironically enjoy shoujo anime_. That she’s already given you more than just the time of day is basically proof that she’s amazing. Not that you needed proof.

She’s still staring at you. Expectant. You think about doing the glasses thing, you know, tilting them down and smiling at her, but...your eyes...

Mutants haven’t been culled for as long as you’ve been alive, but...she’s the _heiress_ , even if that doesn't mean quite as much as it did thirty years ago. And you’re...you.

“So, yeah.” Brilliant. Fucking _brilliant_ , Sollux, you’re like this never-ending pit of witticisms, except in some alternate universe where witticisms are actually _stupid asshole mumbling_. Feferi blinks, oh God, she’s got the cutest blink in the world, you can’t handle this, you are going to hyperventilate and pass out on her trendy Ralph Lauren halter top, oh God, now you’re thinking about her rumble spheres and what if you just told her you’ve got this massive flushcrush on her, would she just cull you on the spot or would she--

“ _You should watch Princess Tutu_ ,” you shout. A chorus of shushing echoes through the stacks.

You flee, barely hearing Feferi’s startled, “You watch anime, too?!” behind you.

You dash from the library, tripping over some kid’s backpack and using your psionics to push a few things--and people--out of your way as you go, and eventually you find yourself back at your communal hivestem, severely winded and eyes sparking. Vriska sticks her head out the second floor window and stares down at you.

“What crawled up _your_ waste chute and wiggled?”

You flip her the bird and wearily let yourself in, taking refuge in your respiteblock. You’ll compile some code, play some WoW with that hilarious douchebag in Texas, what the hell was his SN, turntechGodhead? Lame. You think he might be dating someone you know, but you can’t remember who. You don’t really talk to him aside from flinging insults at each other and generally being assholes. He’s not even your kismesis, sometimes you just need someone that you can be an unrepentant dick with and not get flack for it. You can bury yourself is jackassery and forget that you ever dared to approach Feferi Peixes in the first place.

Yeah. That sounds like a plan.


End file.
